IRELAND's largest and strongest ever team of 74 athletes and sportsmen is finalising preparations for this summer's centenary Olympic Games in Atlanta. Pat Hickey, the president of the Olympic Council of Ireland, is very pleased and hopeful for quality results. He is a blunt, direct Dubliner, pushy enough to be extremely effective, and also a life long sports fanatic.
Frequently thought to be a Fianna Fail supporter, he says "I'm a personal friend of Bertie's, that's all. We're both from the same district of Northside Dublin. You have to be apolitical in this job and I am. I don't care who's in power. I go after them for what I can get for the Olympic sports as that's what the 28 national sports federations elect me for." He does point out that the Fianna Fail leader is obsessed with all sport. "Bertie is a genuine fan and can be seen at GAA and soccer matches on a miserable wet Sunday in the winter with a handful of other supporters, not like some government ministers who demand to sit in the VIP box at a major international when they don't even know the shape of the ball." Hickey is not overly worried about the fact that among some sports officials in this country he is not very popular and has often been targeted for various reasons.
"I have always been an athletes' person. The athlete must always come first. But there are some officials here who tend to see themselves not as slaves of the athletes but more as their masters. They think they're more important than the athletes, crazy stuff," he says, adding. "The majority of the sports federations fully support me.
While neither a charmer nor a diplomat, Hickey is enthusiastic and committed to sport, especially sport in Ireland, as well as being a member of the International Olympic Committee, and blatantly does his best for the home side. "Long before it became fashionable I was a supporter of the Irish football team. I think I have missed only about four maybe six home add away matches over the past 29 years. I've always been mad about soccer.
His sport, however, was and still is judo. Only last week a judo player secured one of Ireland's six wild card entries for these Games. Representing Ireland more than 70 Times in the 71 kilo or light middleweight class, Hickey narrowly missed out on competing at Montreal in 1976. "There were two of us who were doing very well, but at the previous games, seven players were sent and they all lasted about 30 seconds each. So at the last minute the OCI decided not to send us."
BORN in 1945 in Phibsboro and raised there "I'm totally Dublin" Hickey went to St Vincent's in Glasnevin and played soccer. "My father was non sporting, he worked as a clerk in CementRoadstone. There was only myself and my sister. I played schoolboy football with Home Farm and did a bit of athletics as well. I represented the school at 1,500 metres, but I was a real football fanatic.
Although there are so many complaints about the lack of international class sports facilities in Ireland, Hickey recalls that while a young man in the 1960s the Dublin firm of J. Arthur Guinness was famous for having a fine sports complex.
Through a friend, Norman Caprani, he began using the Guinness facilities while there, he became interested in judo. "When we were up at Guinnesss, we used to go for a run from the gym at Watling Street, up along the quays and into the Phoenix Park. But one day in late 64, I saw a notice up for a six week beginners judo course. It said go on, have a go." He did and became more than interested. He first became aware of the sport when Irish judo was represented by one man at the 1964 Olympics. "John Ryan, he lived in London." Part of judo's appeal for Hickey was its philosophy. "I like the whole cultural ethos of it. It was devised as an alternative to the violent martial arts." It is also a demanding pursuit. Success at the highest grades is often slow in coming. "You may fly through the first grades but it becomes much tougher the better you get, and it is easy to become discouraged. I almost gave it up, but a friend persuaded me as I'd gotten so far, to keep with it. And I'm glad I did." He became a Black Belt in 1967 and won his 1st Dan two years later in Dublin. "I got my 2nd Dan 10 years later in Japan. It was very special." In 1989, he earned his 3rd Dan in Dublin.
Hickey's work for the OCI is part time and voluntary. Despite the apparent emergence of Irish sport, all the five main OCI officials donate their services. "I began work in insurance, and after a few years I went out on my own as a broker." He became increasingly involved in auctioneering and valuation, and now runs his own business from offices in Dublin's Dorset Street. "I work hard but, yes, you could say that sport is very important to me. It has been all my life. And I give as much time as possible to my Olympic work, I believe in it."
He is married to a French woman "she was over here learning English as an exchange student and we met". They have four children and now live in Castleknock. He runs in the Phoenix Park and still trains at the local judo club he founded years ago.
Life appears to have improved for Ireland's Olympic hopefuls. "Since I took over as president in 1989, our marketing and sponsorship have gone through the roof and we're at the stage where our elite athletes are on a par with their Continental brothers and sisters."
HICKEY is quick to thank Irish sport's great benefactor. "We owe an awful lot to America we couldn't have been more fortunate than to have the Games in the States, because our main sponsor is Delta Airlines and also the connections we have with the US Olympic committee, ones I have developed through my international connections."
Delta Airlines, recruited by Hickey in 1991, has to date provided Irish athletes with the equivalent of £1.25 million in free air travel. This has proved vital. It is also somewhat disturbing, considering that the Irish Government has contributed exactly £1 million to the Irish Olympic effort.
The lack of money and of facilities both remain major issues. Ireland is in the odd position of having a European swimming champion but still no 50 metre pool. Hickey says nothing would make him more proud than to see Ireland hosting the Olympic Games but "I know at the moment that it just can't be done. It is completely unrealistic."
Tomorrow, Dublin International Sports Council will present a feasibility plan about the logistics of bidding for the Games. "In the draft preview I saw a few months ago of the proposal to be announced tomorrow I saw no commitment from the Government to support the bid, and I wonder what Gay Mitchell must have been doing if he couldn't influence his Cabinet colleagues to underwrite the bid.
"These proposals can't go any further unless there is a blank cheque from the Government, and to date there has been nothing." He also asks "where is the Lottery money? The biggest con job ever perpetrated on Irish sport and by implication on the Irish public in general as regards their contribution towards sport was the National Lottery. When it was set up initially, sport and art were to receive 65 per cent of the proceeds. Then when the politicians saw how hugely successful it was after one year, they then channelled Lottery funds into exchequer funding. So since the start of the Lottery, sport has received less than 2 per cent of the proceeds which is a long way from 65 per cent per annum. The sad thing is that the ordinary citizen feels that out of every £1 they spend on a Lottery ticket, 80p goes to sport, while the truth is less than one penny goes to sport. They are fooled into thinking this because of the trendy television ads the Lottery people produce."
It is odd that while people who are actively involved in sport in Ireland are extremely wary of the idea of bidding for the Games, the strongest calls for hosting the Olympics in Dublin have tended to come from voices outside sport. It exasperates Hickey, who has been criticised for his caution on the subject. "I think it's far more important for Irish athletes to be assisted in their ambitions and preparation than to attempt to stage the Games in the foreseeable future. We still have no 50 metre pool. There is no international outdoor athletics stadium and track. No indoor track either. Our national soccer team continues to play its internationals on a rugby pitch." Surely those anxious to host the Olympic Games in Dublin have noticed that the city traffic becomes paralysed on the evening of a football international?
Hickey recalls Gay Mitchell's arguing that Ireland, by hosting the Papal visit and the Eurovision Song Contest, had proven its ability to stage the Olympic Games. "There's a big difference between having 500.000 people standing in a field in the Phoenix Park and the Olympics. Comparing hosting the Olympics to the Papal Visit and the Eurovision is ridiculous." What would be needed first would be a commitment from the government to finance the infrastructure necessary for an Olympic Games. "We need to gradually build the individual infrastructures needed to hold European and World championships in individual sports, and prove ourselves capable of successfully staging individual major championships. Only then will we be in the position to make a credible and responsible bid to host the Games."
PLANS to host the Summer Olympics with its 28 sports in Dublin are easily put into perspective when one considers the controversy surrounding Ireland's holding of the 1998 World Equestrian championships. "We almost lost those championships, championships in a sport in which Ireland has always had an international standing." The Government refused to pledge the £1 million support, and that seemed to be that until the motor company Nissan stepped in and underwrote the championships with £2 million.
"The championships will do well. Equestrian sports have always been one of Ireland's sporting successes. But let's not forget that we almost lost those world championships because the Government was worried about £1 million the Olympics would cost £2 billion. Looked at practically it does not make any sense.
"I have been described as unpatriotic by Gay Mitchell, who was the lead spokesperson on a Dublin bid when he was in opposition. I noticed as did everyone else a deafening silence from the same gentleman regarding support for the World Equestrian Games when they were under threat." Hickey queries the assumption that if Dublin makes a bid, we'll automatically win. "Gay Mitchell thinks we'll get the Games on the basis of international sympathy for Ireland. But the reality is that for the 2004 Games, 11 cities have bid and there will only be one winner. President Juan Samaranch is on the record as saying that of the last five cities to have won the Games Atlanta, Barcelona, Seoul, LA and Moscow at the time of bidding, they had more than 65 per cent of the required facilities already in place. There's a message in that for cities bidding. So if you have nothing in place, like us it all becomes 100 times more difficult.
HE points out that the citizens of Atlanta are aware that the largest sporting event previously hosted in their city is the Super Bowl final in 1993, "and the Olympics is equivalent to 28 Superbowls happening every day for two weeks".
Having made several trips to Atlanta, Hickey has been impressed by the public spirit there. "The ordinary people have really given it their support and volunteered their time. On the trips we have made you could find yourself being collected at the airport by a brain surgeon in his Lexus. I don't think Irish people would be as quick to volunteer their time to anything. The public spirit in Atlanta for this is amazing." It will be the fourth Games he has attended. "Of the three I've seen so far, they all had their own special quality. I suppose Seoul was my favourite so far because I'm in love with the Asian culture, but LA had great energy and life, as did Barcelona." The many famous recent Olympic moments he has witnessed include Ben Johnson's now infamous world record breaking 100 metres victory which became probably the greatest scandal in the history of the Olympic movement.
The whole drugs story is the biggest threat to the Olympics and to sport. There was a survey done in the States, six months before the 1984 Games and they asked a cross section of athletes if they were to take a drug now that would guarantee them to win a gold medal, although they would die within six months after the Games, would they take the drug? Sixty five per cent of the responding athletes said they would take the drug. Frightening isn't it? Too many athletes have used drugs and got away with it."
When one considers the agonising ordeal endured by Diane Modhal, the British 800 metres runner recently reinstated after being wrongly accused by the IAAF of the use of performance enhancing drugs, the drugs issue seems extremely inconsistently handled.
Modhal was the victim of the results of a contaminated urine sample. She lost almost three years of her athletics career because of it, though she has since been proven innocent and last weekend qualified for Atlanta at the British Olympic trials. Yet if Modhal's nightmare had a happy ending, it does not alter the unfairness of the fact that many athletes, frequently medallists, are known offenders who have used drugs and got away with it while she became a scapegoat.
Although random testing is now used by many national sporting organisations throughout the world, question marks remain. Many observers believe it is still possible to elude detection by simply coming off the drugs prior to competition. "This is still true, but there is a new drug test available now which seems capable of ending sports drug use for good. The new tests they will be using at Atlanta appear capable of exposing all offenders because they go much further back in time and can detect substances still in the system months after the athlete has stopped taking them. I know that some officials are worried that this Olympics could become known as the Drug Test Games. We'll see.
Referring to the OCI's use of random screening which was implemented by him in 1989, Hickey says. "I remember we tested Michele Smith when she was in Dublin for a Late Late Show appearance. On the way out we tested her." According to Hickey, Gay Byrne was horrified when officials swooped on the unsuspecting European Champion, but as he points out, "she doesn't live here and the whole idea of random tests is that there are no warnings given." Drug testing is a very expensive procedure each test costs £500 and Hickey says "my nightmare as OCI president would be to see an Irish athlete fail a drug test." Prior to the Barcelona Olympics, 25 per cent of the Irish team had been drug tested. Four years on and 50 per cent will have been tested before the Atlanta Games.
Returning to the Johnson saga he recalls. "There was such excitement about that race. The Olympic 100 metres is always exciting, you're watching the fastest man on earth. Johnson was phenomenal. But the rumours starting going around the village and by the next day it was out and there was this terrible feeling of being let down."
Sport is about dreams and plans. Of tomorrow's DISC proposal, Hickey says. "When the OCI see the final document and study it, we will then give DISC every help assistance and consideration. But what I'd really like is to see the Government coming out with clear cut support for the OCI and DISC in future Olympic bids. Above all, I'd like to see the Government reviving those Lottery promises and truly supporting Irish sport at all levels."
